Paper Short Abstract:

Real investigative or anthropological creativity resides probably not so much in the combination of ‘emic’ and ‘etic’ points of view but rather arises from fostering the constant, imperfect encounter occurring ‘in-between’ ‘both’, without any clarity about where end or begin the inhabitant’s perceptions or one’s ‘own’ points of views or strategies.

Paper Abstract:

The contribution starts with a decolonially inspired reflection on the necessity of unwriting two of the central concepts of this panel’s proposal. I tackle the idea of methodology from the standpoint of ‘contrarian’ anthropologists like Rabinow and Ingold, with a wink to Feyerabend’s classic, whereas the hegemonic idea of territory will be approached and partly refuted from the perspective of the Aymara families and groups with whom I have worked since many decades. Real investigative or anthropological creativity resides probably not so much in the combination of ‘emic’ and ‘etic’ points of view but rather arises from fostering the constant, imperfect encounter occurring ‘in-between’ ‘both’ parts, without any clarity where end or begin the inhabitant’s perceptions or one’s ‘own’ points of views or experiences. To make this point anthropologically I recur to my decade-long experience with Aymara families in Bolivia and specifically with an indigenous association that provides juridical and cultural advice to communities in their struggle with mining companies and the so-called plurinational state. I discuss the paradox of, on the one hand, having been told many times that “we don’t need the academy” (or scientific research) and on the other hand having been allowed in extremely generous ways to partake in these people’s everyday ways of being-in-the world and of corresponding. Rather than planning interdisciplinary methodologies, politically (territorially!) interesting things started to happen once we let loose the control of the investigative process, observing the emergence of creative dynamics of participative activism.